It is known in the field of crop harvesting equipment to employ harvesting headers to cut crops for various purposes, such as feeding a combine harvester or swathing crop material.
At the front of a combine or swather is the portion referred to as the header. A typical header is equipped with a cutter bar, and a conveyor deck or surface behind the cutter bar onto which cut crop material will fall, and a rear wall of the header, which extends up from the rear of the crop catching surface.
The reel in a harvesting header is typically designed to be approximately the same width as the header. The reel shaft is mounted between two rotational mounts at either end thereof, with a power drive attached to rotate the reel shaft. There is then a plurality of reel bats with fingers that are equally spaced about the reel shaft, and held in position by a plurality of radially extending arms out from the shaft. Rotation of the reel shaft results in the rotation of the reel bats and fingers through the crop in front of the header, drawing the crop material into the cutter bar and the remainder of the device.
Harvesting headers now manufactured with fingers attached to the reel bats typically have the reel bats themselves rotatably mounted in relation to their attachment points, and include a cam mechanism that by selective or guided rotation of the reel bat during the rotation of the overall reel, allows the tips of the fingers to follow a more complex path, into, through and out of the crop material as the reel turns. The cams are of different shapes including circular or otherwise, dependent upon the path of travel that is desired for the fingers. Example of prior art patents in the area of the use of cam mechanisms to orient or adjust the orientation of the fingers on reel bats during the rotation of a harvesting header reel include U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,008,558 (Mott) and 5,768,870 (Talbot et al.).
Often the header or reel is transported by loading the header onto a transport trailer or other platform designed to orient the header lengthwise so it can be trailered in the direction of travel of a power unit such as a tractor or a truck. The size of many headers and their associated reel is such that there are many protruding parts, particularly the fingers along the top and crop facing face of the reel. These fingers are often made of plastic or other shearable material, which allows for simpler maintenance of the reel.
The design of prior art reels is such that the fingers, particularly those facing the crop entry and cutting area, are oriented in a fully outstretched or radial direction as they need to be in order to provide maximum engagement with crop material. However, this creates a problem during transport of the header since extended fingers are more susceptible to damage and breakage due to be exposed. As a result, many times following transport the first task that must be undertaken before the header can be used again is to replace any broken or bent fingers as a result of the transport. The same issue of protruding components exists in circumstances where the header and associated reel are transported in operating position on the harvesting unit.
Accordingly, a harvesting header reel that minimized the protruding profile of the bat fingers during transport would be desirable as a means of minimizing damage.